Reply To: Political Statements
Yeah, that’s pretty much in line with my gut feeling: the Holocaust, in which white people were the targets of racism by other white people, made racism far less socially acceptable to white people in the United States than it had been previously, since white people who had previously been apathetic suddenly became able to identify with the victims of racism. Things started to move after 1945: Jackie Robinson signed with the Dodgers in 1947, the Democratic party embraced civil rights in 1948 (splitting itself as a consequence), and Truman began desegregating the military that same year. Even Broadway show tunes started condemning racism in 1949. It took a few years before there were major shifts in the courts, and the civil rights movement is largely seen as a phenomenon of the 50s and 60s, but in my opinion the fundamental societal shift took place in 1945.
There’s a politically incorrect aspect of this reading of history, though: it attributes civil rights progress to decisions that white people made based on the experiences of other white people. It may be the truth, but it’s not really a popular narrative. The popular narrative gives most of the credit to the NAACP, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., etc. and shifts the timeline a few years later accordingly.